Successful ... politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe, seduce, bamboozle or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies.

The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely, and can be managed only by a specialised class.

The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps even more, so that each of us may live free of the trampling and the roar of a bewildered herd.

Almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created.

A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.

We know that it is possible to harness desire to many interests, that evil is one form of a desire, and not the nature of it.

Ignore what a man desires and you ignore the very source of his power.